Anyone with work starting soon want a chat thread?

[thenewaveragebear1983]

We were quoted in February, and have been patiently waiting… builder is Dh’s mate so worth waiting for. Finally got the 2-3 weeks call last week, so starting in 2 (ish) and I cannot wait!

we aren’t building any footprint, but are knocking into our garage to make a small living room for the kids/playroom; taking down a stud wall to make a large living room on the back; installing a wall and double doors to split a through room, and having our bathroom split into 2 to make a smaller family bathroom and a separate shower room.

we’ve never done anything like this at all so feel very nervous/excited! I’ve not really allowed myself to get excited yet so as not to be disappointed but it does seem like he’s nearly due to start!

would love a chat thread, estimate our work will take 10-12 weeks.

Bette do baths with combined fillers/ wastes, overflow/ wastes or just wastes which match the bath. This is what we’re going for. It takes the pressure off matching everything with the flush plate/ taps.

We've used an independent place for all of our recent bathrooms (the loft is our 4th in the last 2 years). They've been great for designing the space and suggesting alternatives - the radiator we've got in our main bathroom has gone from £250 when we first bought it to £380 in about 2 years. The catalogue definitely has lots of black options

We’ve not really gone as far as actually pricing out yet, most of my plans are still in my head! I think after Christmas we will head to a big local showroom/building supplier to see some examples. Our builders quote actually includes fittings but we don’t know how much he has allowed for that at as a rough guide.

@Newnamefor2021 that sounds so stressful. Hope it gets sorted as @thenewaveragebear1983 says having a builder go missing is the worst nightmare. Literally gives me palpitations!

This week has been ups and downs. Ups - the walls have been built so we have 3 dbl bedrooms and a bathroom again. Also these walls and those on the ground floor have been skimmed and plastered 🥳. Utility has been created 🥳, bifolds and new windows have been installed in the kitchen/family space 🥳🥳, ground floor electrics are done .

Downsides... the glass our original wooden french door in the dining room to garden have been broken. Builder says it was the sub zero weather. Not sure if I believe but they can't be restored so will need to be replaced with modern French doors. I'm gutted to loose the original feature and the thought of paying £2k +vat to change something unexpectedly isn't helping our already tight budget

Oh well, now I'm concentrating on the weather forecast as the loft shell should be starting first week in Jan 2023.

@mobear i like the wall mounted flow and taps. If nothing else, it removes all the annoying, hard to clean bits of the bathroom doesn’t it?

I really think we are going to have to have our existing bathroom stripped back to brick due to the plaster being rotten by being so damp. We not only have slugs, we have actual mushrooms growing around the tile at the moment, it is grim. However, I suppose that means he can just install a stud wall and all the pipe work would go behind it?

@reno22 can you replace the glass? I contacted a glazer when the front door ended up smashed

@reno22 or check eBay and marketplace. I watched a set of vintage oak doors for months. You might be able to replace them? They don’t cost much especially if you can collect them. Gutted to break an original feature though.
we have an original stained glass and the original front door to our house, previous owner has mounted them as internal doors . They aren’t especially old but it is nice to have and retain some of the original fabric of the building and feels more significant when you’re making big new changes somehow.

🎉 🍷 🥂 for all your wins this week though!

@thenewaveragebear1983 our builder did that and we had to get him to show us which doors etc would be in the price range he'd quoted. He'd included a £35 PSM for tiles which turned out to exclude a lot but we managed to stick to it by buying some in a half price sale and then storing them. We couldn't afford to go wildly over the quoted price.

He started today! Finally!

Although it will definitely take a bit of getting used to having someone in the house! I was only in since 1 and I’m already feeling like I’m rattling about. I’ve just stood in the kitchen next to the oven while the dinner cooked, partly to keep warm! Could be a long few weeks!

We are planning a full house renovation on the house we’re buying. The purchase has been significantly delayed, and it briefly looked like it was going to fall through, but we’re now expecting to complete and get the keys in a few weeks time!!

It needs a huge amount of work - new roof, rewire, heating system replaced, replastering, new kitchen & bathroom, etc. It was marketed as a cosmetic renovation and we had a comfortable budget for that but it’s going to be pretty tight now, even after negotiating on the price.

I keep telling myself we just need to get it liveable so wired, heating, really messy changes (patio doors/pocket door/archway/doorway bricked up) and a bathroom. We’re still saving like mad and some stuff will just have to wait until we have more money.

We’re going to strip it back while we’re waiting for builders to save money. I hate my job right now but it pays more than I’ll get anywhere else so it is what it is - I’m looking forward to channeling that anger into ripping everything out 😂

Does anyone know if it’s a bad idea to keep stuff in the house before we move in? Just tiles, a bath, boxes of books, etc. We’re in a pokey rental flat so it would really help but I saw a renovation tv show where vandals broke in and now I’m worried! I’ve been researching lights that look like a flickering tv & we’ve got door cameras we can move over but I have no idea how people normally do it.

You can do, but it does depend what work you're going to do too and what conditions are like in the house. Both times we renovated there have been floorboards up for the rewiring and this time we're having UFH installed which means nothing on any of the floors. We've taken advantage of sales to buy tiles but are storing them in the garage at our rental house.

I wouldn't store things like books there unless I was absolutely sure there was no damp or leaks.

Presumably you wouldn't have contents insurance on it yet so anything you left there wouldn't be insured? We've had to get specialist renovation/empty house insurance as the house will be empty for more than 30 days.

Thanks @RidingMyBike that’s really helpful.

The house isn’t a total wreck, it’s still lived in but in need of serious modernisation as our seller is in his late 80s and hasn’t kept up with the work needed. It hadn’t sprung any leaks when we were last there a couple of month ago but I have no idea how - sections of our roof tiles have fallen off so it’s a matter of time.

We’ve got our renovations insurance lined up, yes, so we won’t have contents to begin with. There’s going to be some floorboards up at the beginning of the work too so it’s probably not a good idea to begin with.

Personally if you are getting the dirty work done first I'd leave it empty.
We were in a similar position- bought from an elderly woman who had lived raised her family in the house for 55 years. Our builder wanted it empty . When the walls were stripped realised how little insulation was in the internal walls so ended up going back to brick.

We started work end of November and can see the progress.

The radiators are going in next week, scaffolding went up today so the loft works can start next week.

Gaaagh, really hoping we stay on schedule so keeping close contact with my builder to the point of (probably) annoyance .

Can I please ask for some advice / guidance. I'm in the very early stages, just been granted planning permission. Can someone explain the basic build process to me please? I've got my drawings, planning permission granted. Do I now find a structural engineer or a builder? How does the next stage work? If I start talking to builders will they refer me to a structural engineer or do I go and find one myself? Please help, I'm stressed and confused! Got no one to ask in real life.

We're still in the house. Things have been slow to start back up this week due to issues with deliveries and illness BUT they are coming to prep for the plasterer tomorrow. He will be in next week along with the stairs and finally the dormer cladding. Part of the stairs was damaged so had to be remade. We also had a leak into one of the bedrooms on new years eve, fortunately it stopped quickly and source has been identified. The full scaffolding should be off by the end of the week so that feels like a milestone.

@FurCoatNoNickers i don’t know the process really, ours didn’t require planning or structural engineer. However, after waiting nearly a full year for our builder, my advice would be to get a builder or 2 round to discuss the planning you’ve had approved, they will know the process, and that will get you onto their waiting list.

I'd get a couple of builders round to see your plans and quote. They should be able to recommend a structural engineer - our builder did all the liaising and organised for him to come on site.

Same for us, our builder has a preferred structural engineer so he arranged this for us. I'd also agree about getting some builders round to have a look as soon as possible. The first builder we had lined up quoted us in November 2021. By July 2022 we still couldn't get a rough start date so we looked elsewhere. Had a quote and they started in October but I think this was because they'd had some cancellations with all the uncertainty.

Thank you for the replies. When you get the builders round, what sort of questions do you ask? How do you arrange the payment stages with them? I realise that I sound so naive......I'm so scared of getting ripped off

Ours was slightly different as we are having a renovation but nothing built (no footprint built). Plus the builder is a good mate of dh’s and so we aren’t worried about him ripping us off etc… we did get a couple of quotes from others though. My advice is to be very clear about what you want, and be honest about the things you haven’t decided yet. Ask them to quote you for different options. Chat it through with them, if they are good then they will have lots of ideas and experience. Realistically your quote at this stage is just a ballpark figure, things could change. So chat it through. We knew exactly what we wanted to achieve at the end but didn’t know how to get it and he helped us work through a few options.
one guy who came round to quote just ignored what I asked for, we have a big house and I wanted the downstairs reconfigured, and his solution was to build a side extension with bi-fold doors when our double glazing was brand new 🤦‍♀️ needless to say, we didn’t go with him

also: be prepared for them to not show up to quote, and then not actually want the work once they’ve quoted for it 🤷‍♀️

In other news, he started this week and we now have a stud wall and some doors separating our through room! How exciting!

Sounds like progress @thenewaveragebear1983 !
We were sent a payment schedule through to agree before work started. Off the top of my head
25% before/as they started so they can order materials
25% once the gable wall and roof were done
25% at first fix
10% on plastering
5% on completion
The last 2 might be the other way round. Usually the payments tie in with the building regs inspections.

Exciting and great progress@thenewaveragebear1983 !

Our scaffolding went up today! We've ordered internal doors, radiators and the new megaflo and boiler. The loft works start next week.

Once the loft is dry secured we'll order the bathrooms and the new roof lights will go in.

Only stress is our builder hasn't spoken with wren yet. I know he wants the job of installing our kitchen so maybe that's why. All I know is my DD turns 1 in April and I want her party at our home 🤞🤞🤞

@FurCoatNoNickers we're major renovation rather than extension, but including some structural work. We got the builder in to quote and talked through what we wanted - he had some good ideas about solutions to a couple of things which we wouldn't have thought of. Ask about availability of start dates, ease of getting materials, who is responsible for organising building control, what access you'll need during the work, who you contact with questions etc. Ours insists on everything in writing and sends out minutes by email after we've had a conversation on site which surprised me initially but does help prevent misunderstandings.

Ask about the payment schedule. This project is £150k+ and builder provides a valuation spreadsheet two weeks into project (we paid nothing up front) showing what work/labour/materials has been done so far and we pay for that within a week. So we paid for instalment at week 3 of project, then fortnightly intervals since. Some of the earlier payments were bigger because of paying for lots of stuff like the kitchen units when they were ordered so you need to make sure you can produce the money when it's needed - our initial two payments at weeks 3 and 5 were both around £25k but that has since dropped to £7k - £15k.

Ask about insurance - builder should provide you with details of his cover before work starts. He should also provide a contract setting out terms and conditions. Ours includes working hours and how tidy the site will be left. It also includes things like whether they can use our loo!

Oh and he put any options in the quote - so we had options for UFH to whole house or just go ground floor with radiators upstairs.

Some amounts on it are estimated - he assigned an amount for bathroom and kitchen fittings which we came in slightly below for the kitchen and massively over for the bathroom! Tiles he gave an amount of £35 PSM and we just made sure we chose within that range.

Some things can't be known in advance so make sure you have contingency available - we are about 5% over after finding a few problems once they got on the roof and all the cupboards ripped out .